Since the beginning of this year, over 20 blockchain games have raised 100 million dollars. Which new projects are worth paying attention to?

Author: Mia, ChainCatcher

Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher

With BTC briefly breaking through $57,000, the total market value of the global cryptocurrency market reached a peak of $2.24 trillion, ushering in a new wave of growth in the global crypto industry since November 2021, as a large amount of capital begins to flow into Web3.

The once explosive sector of blockchain games, which gave rise to the globally popular Axie Infinity and STEPN and led the bull market in 2021, has attracted a new wave of users and institutions in this bull market.

According to data from RootData, since January 2024, over 20 blockchain games have announced financing, with the total amount exceeding $100 million.

GameFi Market Rebounds, Active Players Surge

The blockchain gaming sector experienced explosive growth in January this year. According to the latest report from Footprint Analytics, the average number of active users in the Web3 gaming sector in January surged by 54.67% compared to the average level for the entire year of 2023, with the average number of active users in January increasing by 14.42% compared to December of last year. Meanwhile, the total number of blockchain games grew from 2,081 in January 2023 to 2,877 in January 2024, indicating a significant increase in active users in blockchain games and an accelerated expansion of the Web3 gaming market.

Additionally, OKX Ventures' latest report pointed out that with the gradual improvement of the macro environment and the influx of capital and traffic, the popularity of GameFi continues to rise.

Currently, the average daily number of game users in blockchain games is 2.21 million, with an average daily trading volume of $4.66 million. In terms of market share among gamers, Ronin ranks first with 610,000 players, showing a growth of over 100%, accounting for more than 29%. The top three games by daily trading volume are Axie Infinity, Treasure DAO, and Gods Unchained; while the top three games by number of players are Carv, MotoDEX, and Pixels.

Institutions Actively Positioning, Trying to Become the Next Animoca

Moreover, the enthusiasm of the capital market for blockchain games continues to heat up. According to RootData, since January 2024, over 20 blockchain games have announced financing, with the total amount exceeding $100 million.

The crypto fantasy sports platform Monkey Tilt leads the list with $21 million in financing, followed by the AAA game SkyArk Chronicles and the blockchain game studio Overworld with $15 million and $10 million, respectively.

The specific investment and financing situation is as follows:

From the end of January to early February, the activity level of the investment and financing market significantly increased, fully proving this point. These financing projects cover game developers, game projects, and gaming guilds. Animoca Brands, which started with investments in blockchain games, has once again become the most active participant in this round of game financing, participating in the financing of four blockchain game projects including Matr1X, Ultiverse, Pixelmon, and AOFverse.

The current financing environment for blockchain games has shifted from the dominance of Animoca Brands in 2021 to a flourishing landscape with multiple institutions entering the field. For instance, Binance Labs, Foresight Ventures, and Hack VC have all participated in blockchain game investments, reflecting the increasing attention and rising popularity of the blockchain gaming sector.

Among them, the AAA game project SkyArk Chronicles, developed by SkyArk Studio and led by Binance Labs, aims to replicate the success of Hong Kong unicorn Animoca by establishing an ecosystem for incubating crypto projects and leveraging SkyArk Studio's proprietary resources to become the next Animoca Brands.

With the recovery of the crypto market and the continuous improvement of industry infrastructure, more innovative projects are expected to emerge, driving the gaming sector to produce more high-quality projects, thus leading to explosive growth in the entire GameFi field. The active and diversified investment and financing market in blockchain games injects new vitality into the sector, breaking the previous monopoly held by a few institutions.

In terms of the overall price of blockchain games, it has slightly lagged behind the market's rise and is in the early stages of an upward trend. Among them, established GameFi tokens led by Ronin (RON) and SLP have seen an increase of about 30% over the past 30 days. As the saying goes, "new coins are favored over old ones," and Binance's recent large-scale listing of new coins in the blockchain gaming sector confirms this.

Recently Notable New Blockchain Game Projects:

Pixels (PIXEL)

At the beginning of this month, Binance's new coin mining announced the launch of Pixels (PIXEL), causing quite a stir. Its opening price surged from $0.04 to $0.69, an increase of over 1500%. Currently, the price remains around $0.56, and since its launch, there has been no volatility as investors might have imagined; instead, it has shown a tendency for stable sideways movement, pushing the "wealth creation effect" of Binance's new coin mining to new heights.

After announcing its launch on Binance Launchpool, Pixels disclosed $4.8 million in strategic financing, with investors including Framework Ventures, Collab+Currency, and Yield Guild Games.

Pixels claims to be a social, casual, open-world Web3 game and platform launched in 2021, aiming to allow users to create their own games and natively integrate existing digital collectibles. Pixels migrated from Polygon to the Ronin network at the end of last year, the latter being an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chain developed by Sky Mavis, the well-known developer behind Axie Infinity. Consequently, as the Pixels game gains popularity, the price of the Ron token has also been on the rise in recent months.

Portal (PORTAL)

Portal, as the 47th project launched in Binance's new coin mining, follows the previous game new coin PIXEL.

Portal claims to be a cross-chain gaming platform aimed at bringing more players into Web 3.0. The platform focuses on features such as one-click login with Portal Passport and easy payment; it will create a management system for all in-game assets, such as NFTs and account abstraction; and it supports cross-chain operations and seamless integration.

Portal Coin is the universal gaming currency and native currency of the Portal gaming platform, serving as a link between Web3 games and gamers, and can be used for governance on the platform, trading of games, and other scenarios.

Portal has announced that it has completed a new round of strategic financing, with participation from Michael Bouhanna, Vice President and Head of Digital Art and NFTs at Sotheby's, Max Crown, co-founder of MonnPay, 9GAG CEO @9gagceo, GiulioX, CEO of Pixelmon, and Kalos, co-founder of Parallel.

According to a Binance research report, PORTAL has a total supply of 1 billion, with an initial circulation of about 167 million, of which 50 million are allocated for Binance mining. Based on the market capitalization of PIXEL at launch being around $300-400 million, the PORTAL price could be around $2.20. According to AEVO data, the current futures price of PORTAL is close to $3.

Matr1X (FIRE)

According to official information, the Web3 entertainment platform Matr1X has completed $20 million in financing, with OKX Ventures participating. Additionally, its Web3 shooting mobile game Matr1X FIRE announced on the 21st of this month that it has received strategic investment from Animoca Brands. Its game token FIRE has been listed on Bitget, with the opening price rising from $0.05 to $3, and the current token price stabilizing around $1.20.

It is reported that Matr1X FIRE is the first mobile shooting game under Matr1X, aiming to create a CSGO in the Web3 field, focusing on classic shooting and 5v5 fair competition, with gameplay similar to CSGO, Crossfire, and Call of Duty Mobile, allowing players to earn NFTs and tokens by playing the game.

Matr1X has announced that it will launch the Web3 Asian eSports bidding competition in March.